Baking, crafting, mama-ing and taking photos of it all. When I remember.

Category Archives: exercise

Once upon a time I was a middle school aged kid who ran track for about a week’s worth of practices and then decided I haaaaated it and never ran again.

Until about a year after my second baby (HBear) was born. In 2013, I started regularly exercising for basically the first time in my adult life and it was great – I lost weight, I was fit and strong, I felt good about my physical presence in the world. The kids were still little enough that I could put them in the double jogging stroller and run around Back Cove. (I totally got high fives from big burly dudes when I did that.) My work schedule was literally half what it is now, so I had time to run. And, importantly, I lived within a few blocks of a fabulous running trail. (I no longer do.) However, after about a year and a half of running, I had a recurrence of plantar fasciitis. I’d had it before and the doctor told me to wear super supportive shoes (hello arches!) and it went away pretty quickly. This time, I tapered off my running until June 2015, when I did the Color Run in South Portland on a very cold, raining, miserable day. (It was a lot of fun, despite the weather – until I got back to my car after the race and could barely get my keys out because my hands were stiff and frozen.)

Good times, y’all.

But that was the last time I ran. Until yesterday.

Over the past two years I’ve focused on my shoe choices, getting various inserts for said shoes, seeing my doctor, doing stretches, wearing stretchy foot braces, doing certain exercises for my feet & calves (which seemed only to exacerbate the problem) and, finally, wearing this stupid looking sock to bed every night. Very little seemed to help, except for that damn sock. (It is super sexy. And so comfortable. *insert eyeroll here*) I’ve been using it nearly every night since early May and gosh darn it if I can’t actually walk around (almost) pain-free now. HALLELUJAH.

But this means that for the past two years, I’ve been fairly inactive. Recommended “treatment” for plantar fasciitis involves staying off your feet as much as possible, which is…unrealistic for a mother of two small kids. But I’ve tried. No running. I still walked but not great distances, except occasionally. My two years of inactivity definitely shows. I’ve gained back all the weight I was so proud of losing before. I’m not nearly as fit or strong or physically capable as I was. It has been intensely frustrating to finally get to a point where I felt good about myself, only to slip all the way back. I tried to find ways of working out that didn’t bother my foot but it was very difficult – even yoga hurt, due to going barefoot.

So I took a small first step yesterday and did the first day (again) of C25K. I can honestly say something I never thought I’d say: I’ve really missed running. We’ll see how it goes…

But not for the reasons you might think. I like running. I like walking. I like doing it on a treadmill when it’s 17 degrees outside. But this one is so user-unfriendly. It starts up slooooowly and then you can’t just tell it how fast you want to go, you have to be walking/running and simultaneously, continuously pushing the up or down arrows. Which I loathe.

First world problems, right?

In other news, the kids had their holiday concert tonight and it was incredibly adorable. E sang her little heart out. H…didn’t. (I had to accompany him onstage and stay there. Oh well. We weren’t the only ones!)

Then we came out of the festive holiday concert to a smattering of snowflakes! Perfect.

So these are our two new garden plots for next year. It’s the same community garden but different plots because last year’s were so far away from the only water source I wanted to switch. It appears that whoever had them this past year did nothing except plant sunflowers. And grass? So. Many. Weeds. That big sunflower on the right? SO HEAVY. Holy crap I had no idea. Damn thing was like a small tree. So this is what I did today…

When I picked E up from preschool today she really! really! wanted to show me something. Turns out she’s figured out how to slide down the pole, which as of last week she was still too afraid to try. I’m so proud! She’s not always very good at trying new things, especially physical stuff. It’s never been her strong point. But she did it! Yay!

I had a workshop after work today so M took my car and did pick/drop off of the kidlets. Thus, I found myself home alone (!) this morning and decided to go for a run before work! I wore my new running shoes, pants, shirt AND socks. Ha! New duds galore!

Sadly, I think I need to not run in the morning. I get too easily dehydrated and then around lunchtime I end up with a splitting headache. It’s happened every time I’ve gone running in the morning recently. (Usually I go later in the day.) Boo. Oh well, lesson learned!